Even at the height of Judy Garland's fame, to people of Grand Rapids, Minnisota, she was Frances Ethal Gumm, the two-year old, frilly-dressed girl known as baby, who wouldn't stop singing until she was carried offstage. When the Governor asked Garland to sing at her home state's Centennial Fair in 1958, she greated the audience as a fellow Minnisotan and gave a full concert on a hot day in May, while fighting Laryngitis. In 2014, Grand Rapids celebrated the 75th anniversary of the treatrical release of the Wizard of Oz. "We had the community-1,150 people in our town-dressed up in full costume from the Wizard of Oz. We broke the Guinnes World Record," Kelsch says. Each June, the Judy Garland Museum holds a festival marking Garland's birthday on June 10, 1922, and honoring her role as Dorothy in the film. Garland's own mother and father, Ethel and Frank, were aspiring vaudeville performers who, after becoming parents, were dedicated to the promotion of Frances and her older sisters, Dorothy and Virginia, as entertainers. In this pursuit, the family left Minnesota for California in 1926, and the Gumm sisters spent much time on the road, performing. In 1934, Ethel drove Frances and her sisters cross-country to sing at the Chicago World's Fair. Kelsch says before they went onstage at the Oriental Theater, the Master of Ceremonies said, "Oh, Gumm Sisters, no way. You'll get a big laugh. That's not a show biz name. "He suggested the name Garland, and it stuck. Frances completed her showbiz renewal when she chose a new first name after hearing Hoagy Carmichael's "Judy" on the car radio. The Garfield's moved to Los Angeles in 1936, and Judy Garland soon signed with MGM. She was nicknamed "One Take Judy" because of her talent and efficiency as a performer.
